Over the weekend, Barack and Michelle Obama appeared on YouTube’s Dear Class of 2020 special to speak to the high school and college students graduating this year.

The former president and first lady said that they, too, have been grappling with anguish, uncertainty, and loss amid the pandemic and George Floyd protests.

“As someone once said: Hope is not a lottery ticket. It’s a hammer for us to use in a national emergency — to break the glass, sound the alarm and sprint into action,” Barack said.

“As scary and uncertain as these times may be, they are also a wake-up call,” he added, “and they are an incredible opportunity for your generation.”

“I hope that what you’re going through right now can be your wake-up call,” Michelle chimed in. “In light of the current state of our country, I struggled to find the right words of wisdom for you today. So, I am here today to talk to you not as the former first lady, but as a real live person: a mother, a mentor, a citizen concerned about your future and the future of our country.”

“Over these past couple of months our foundation has been shaken — not just by a pandemic that stole too many of our loved ones, upended our daily lives and sent tens of millions into unemployment, but also by the rumbling of the age-old fault lines that our country was built on — the lines of race and power that are now, once again, so nakedly exposed for all of us to grapple with,” Michelle continued. “The question is: how will we respond?”

God, we miss them.